Dr. James Beckett: Sports Card Insights

John's origin story involves him originally and still collecting baseball cards, but apparently now loving soccer even more, although surprisingly he is a not a big collector of soccer cards.

Jimmy asked about the best way to break into breaking cases - to be profitable a breaker has to acquire desirable sports card cases at a reasonable cost.

John's Sports Card Nation is one of my favorite podcasts.  In this episode we trade alternating questions about the hobby we both love.

Brad and I discuss the technical challenges inherent in what GradeA.id's press release and marketing mock-up seem to suggest.

Co-hosts Brody the Kid and Brad Bethune joined me for a stimulating conversation about this breaking news story and how it might impact the grading world.

Josh and I discuss Card Ladder - an impressive analytical app that provides a 21st century price guide approach to many of the inter-related high demand cards in our hobby as well as other cards suggested by the followers. 

Brody the Kid and Brad Bethune (@TXCardDude) were my co-hosts a couple of weeks ago on Hobby Hotline (available live or as an audio podcast) - this was the part of the show that elaborated on my kids' product idea.

Bowman came back with a splash in 1989 when Topps brought back the first of these prospect-driven baseball card sets, which have continued to be anticipated staples within the annual mix of baseball card releases.  Rich and I cover the first three years of Bowman baseball sets.

Gabriella had some questions she wanted to ask me about the sports cards hobby for her college psychology paper about how nostalgia has played an important part in the resurgence of collecting during the pandemic.

Buy on the big dip, the little dip, the future dip, the permanent dip?  Very confusing especially in a raging bull market for sports cards.

In sports card grading the spread between the values of 9's versus 10's is not a fixed constant, as it floats and is dependent on many factors especially the condition sensitivity of the card.  Here's what I would do if I think 9's are undervalued with respect to 10's (of the same card).

Question submitted about whether 1 of 1's should be graded - here's ten considerations that are relevant to me on my decision in that regard.

We hear Brad's sports card origin story including how his wife surprisingly encouraged him at a strategic crossroads.

Val and I trade questions back and forth, and not all questions were NASCAR related.  Val's love of sports card collecting, especially racing, and NASCAR shines through!

Josh shares his sports card origin story and how he began his content creation activities culminating in co-founding Card Ladder. 

I was on Hobby Hotline last Saturday with Brad Bethune (TXCardDude) and Brody The Kid and this segment came up with respect to the recent press release and the certain coming of more tools to assist with pre-grading. 

We briefly recount the highlights of the past four weeks of daily episodes - if you have episode ideas, please send them to doctorjamesbeckett@gmail.com  and thanks!

Interesting news from PSA acquiring Genamint to enhance or lead their AI grading initiatives - this episode discusses the difficulty of AI Grading specifically with respect to edges. 

Some sports card collections are simply too large to be "shown" in their entirety, but they can be described, hopefully in summary form, drilling down for more details if asked.

Jimmy Estruch of RetroBoomin shares his origin story with us - he had written in and sought advice on shaping and growing his sports card hobby business now that he is full-time. 

Our modern virtual dinner guests (Ken Capell, Jason Granet, Jordan Hagedorn, Jeremy Lee, and Mike Sommer) each had an opinion of the value of budgeting in this exciting time in our hobby.  

Val, co-host of NASCARD Radio, and I discuss the history of NASCAR cards and other related racing subjects.  NASCAR is America's second most popular spectator sport!

Gabriella is a psychology major at Stern College for Women in New York and has both a father and brother who collect sports cards - she is writing a paper on our hobby and we discuss those issues practically and a little bit scholarly.

Detroit collector Frank Guastella and I fondly remember three great collectors from Detroit who were all outstanding ambassadors for our sports card hobby. 

How easy is it to manipulate the sports card market or at least the price or value of a specific card or player?